1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computers, and more particularly, to efficient garbage collection in a compressed journal file in a computing environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's society, computer systems are commonplace. Computer systems may be found in the workplace, at home, or at school. Computer systems may include data storage systems, or disk storage systems, to process and store data. The data can be lost due to problems such as system crashes, hardware failures, and abnormal computing system halts. Journaled file systems can be used to maintain data integrity when these types of problems occur. Journaled file systems maintain file system integrity by recording information regarding updates to directories, bitmaps, and/or data, in a log, also called a journal, before the updates are written to a storage device such as a hard disk. In the event of a system crash or other problem, the information in the journal can be used to restore the file system to a consistent state. Full-journaling file systems additionally perform data journaling, in which data updates are also stored in the journal, to ensure that no committed data is lost.